Follow The Beat
by lunellegarden
Summary: Tilana Jones Wise - Tilly, as her parents lovingly call her - has always known that her family is... well, different. For one thing, her dad is the only dad around with pointy ears and a pair of wings. And nobody else's mother owns their home planet. And she's positive that nobody else has a best friend who's the genetic recurrence of their murderous technically-cousin.
1. Chapter 1

Tilly may be average, but her family isn't.

She knows that it's very abnormal to be able to play fetch with her dad. She knows that her cousins are very, very dangerous, even if Kalique does play nice exceptionally well. She knows that her mother was in danger for being a recurrence of Seraphi Abrasax.

What she doesn't know, at first, is that her childhood best friend is the recurrence of Seraphi's oldest child, Balem, the creepazoid (as her mother puts it) who nearly succeeded in murdering her and taking control of the Abrasax Empire.

She doesn't think _he_ even knows, not with the circling uncertainty that Balem is even dead. Sure, it's been almost seventeen years since the interstellar manhunt that heralded the slow fall of the RegeneX industry, but not even Chicanery is totally sure he's gone.

Tilly wishes there could've been some sort of… disturbance in the force, or something like that, to indicate that Balem died. But since there wasn't, it's just conjecture, up until Asher accidentally cuts his finger while at Tilly's house, and Caine just about goes berserk.

Jupiter successfully plays it off as a bad allergic reaction to a bee sting, which Tilly knows is total BS, courtesy of Uncle Stinger. Asher just takes it in stride, already acquainted with Tilly's characteristic strangeness, and after he leaves for the day, she approaches her parents for an explanation.

Being fifteen, her parents deem her old enough to learn of her parents' history – albeit a very PG version – and when they finish explaining, she's dumbfounded.

* * *

I can tell from the giggle Mom lets out that I must have an impressive disgusted look on my face.

"Ehh," I sigh, "Mom, it's not funny!"

Hugging me, much to my annoyance, she replies, "Sweetheart, it is very funny. Caine, just look at her face! How precious."

Pouting, crossing my arms as well as my being captured in Mom's hug will allow, my gaze falling on Dad's ears… which appear to be twitching in amusement-!

"Dad!" I exclaim, hoping that he would at least take my side on the seriousness of the situation. "Dad, come on! Work with me, here!"

Mom lets go of me, still giggling faintly, and I turn away from both of them, only for Dad to scoop me up in his wings and coddle me just like when I was a little girl.

"Gahhh, Da-ad, let go!" I fake-whine, wiggling around and tickling myself on his feathers. But he ignores my plea, adding to my embarrassment by carrying me around as he slips into his grav boots and leaps off the balcony of our high-rise apartment.

The ground quickly looms up from below, forcing a small scream out of me just before the grav boots kick in, and we're gliding over the park and circling around the apartment building. My scream turns into strangled laughter as we scale higher and higher, finally coming to rest back on the balcony where Mom stands waiting for us.

Dad puts me down and gives me a noogie before fixing my hair back into place. I nudge him in the side as repayment, and he sits down on one of the balcony chairs as he deactivates the grav boots.

"Ready to talk now?" he asks, ears twitching in tandem with the raising of one eyebrow.

Following Mom's lead and leaning my hip against the railing, I cross my arms once again after pushing my honey-colored hair over one shoulder. "Yeah, I guess," I finally say, giving in to the chronic strangeness of my family.

"Good," Dad says, and Mom extricates herself from the conversation on the grounds that she has to go wake Simeon up from his nap. She reenters the apartment with all the grace due the owner of Earth and recurrence of the virtual queen of the universe.

Scratching behind one ear, he bites his bottom lip, unsure of where to begin. After a few moments, I start the conversation for him.

"Dad," I start, "why did you go nuts when Asher got that paper cut? It was so freaky, like you were under some spell or something."

 _That's a very delicate way to put it,_ I think, recalling how he nearly leapt across the apartment to jump a very terrified and confused Asher, thankfully stopped by Mom. The look in his eyes could only have been described as vengeful, maybe borderline homicidal.

Inappropriately, he chuckles faintly, resting one elbow on his knee to cup his forehead in his hand. "There's a reason for that," he admits, "though not necessarily a good one.

"We already told you about the fight between the three Abrasax kids that almost got your mother killed," he reminds me, "and how Balem was lost during the plant explosion. That was as far as we thought we would ever have to get in digging up old ghosts.

"What we didn't want to tell you," he continues, sitting back in his chair and letting his gaze sweep over the city skyline, "was the reason why I was being employed by Titus."

Confused, I ask, "Wasn't it just to find Mom?" That's what they led me to conclude, at least.

When he looks at me, there's a dark look of shame in his eyes. I barely recognize the words when he explains, "No one goes from being skyjacker to kidnapper for a good reason. And mine had to be one of the worst."

I've just taken a step up from confusion to total bewilderment, and nervously ask, "Dad… what happened to you?"

He takes a deep breath and rubs a hand along his jaw line before responding.

"I once attacked an Entitled, long before I met your mother. I never told her, but the Entitled – who I attacked after being genetically tricked into doing so by an enemy – was Balem Abrasax."

I'm horrified for about three seconds before the surge of pride rushes in me for Dad attacking the creepazoid who tried to kill Mom. I know, deep down, that it's not really something I should be proud of, but I'm proud of him anyways.

"So what?" I ask. "You attacked Balem, like, twenty years ago, right? What does that have to do with anything?"

His face darkens again when he reveals, "Asher's blood smelled exactly the same as Balem's did."

My jaw slowly drops before I shakily ask, "Does M-mom know?"

Sighing, he leans forward once more, hands folded between his knees, and tells me, "I think she could sense it, being a recurrence of Seraphi."

I want to ask, _Sense what?_ But then it hits me.

That same disgusted look must have appeared on my face, as Dad's ears twitch in amusement, even as I exclaim, "Asher is Balem's recurrence?!"

Mom cuts in, "It would appear so, darling," bouncing Simeon in her arms.

"But I thought they were super-rare. Recurrences, I mean," I reply, twirling a strand of hair absentmindedly.

"Supposedly, they are," Mom admits, handing Simeon off to Dad. "But with the Abrasax family, you never really know what's true and what's not."

From the way Dad rolls his eyes, I can tell she's referring to the ridiculous bureaucratic practices and deceit. I might be a fifteen year old girl, but I've seen some of it for myself, when Mom's brought me along on her monthly meetings to go over Earth's retained status as a piece of her inheritance from Seraphi. The trips may be fun, with all the cool splices running around doing errands for the other Entitled, but the meetings themselves are so full of interstellar legalese – which is even worse than Earth legalese – that I can barely follow what's going on. It's a wonder that Mom's able to do it, but then again, she's had seventeen years of practice.

"If the Abrasax lied when they said that recurrences are extremely unusual, then it's definitely plausible that Asher really is Balem's recurrence." Dad wipes drool off Simeon's face with his bib, then adds, "It's the only thing that legitimately explains what happened earlier."

"Let's not worry about it too much," Mom says, placing a hand on my shoulder. "Come on, it's time to start dinner. I'll have your father contact someone on the _Aegis_ to get a DNA testing kit. We'll just have to invite Asher over again and swipe a cup he drinks out of to check and see," she says with a twinkle of mischief in her eye.

 _Best. Mom. Ever_ , I think, as we all head inside to help with dinner.

* * *

"Hiyyyaa," Simeon squeals from his high chair before shoving another piece of peach into his mouth and gumming it happily.

"He's such a happy baby," Mom laughs, wiping peach juice off his face only for him to do it again. "I'm so glad we had a second child, Caine. We need another little bundle of joy in our lives."

"Not that you weren't enough of a bundle of joy," Dad adds, chewing thoughtfully on the baked chicken Mom made.

"That's right," Mom smiles, "it was pretty fantastic to see the look on the doctor's face when you were born."

"Because of these?" I ask, fingering the slightly-pointed tips of my ears.

"That's exactly right," she answers. "It was easy to explain those away as a rare genetic difference, what with your father usually hiding his. I don't know what we would've done if Simeon was born with them, too."

Dad, smirking, comments, "It would've been simple, if you didn't insist on having a human doctor around for the birth."

Huffing, she whacks Dad in the arm with a rolled-up towel, joking, "Your father is such a smart-aleck, Tilly, don't listen to a word he says."

Rolling my eyes good-naturedly, I stand to clear the table just as the phone rings. The tone is shrill and birdlike, so I grab it and hand it straight to Mom.

She answers it, listens for a few moments, and then looks worriedly to Dad. She says nothing to him, but he automatically knows what's going on. He disappears into his and Mom's bedroom while she hangs up the phone and gathers Simeon into her arms.

"Tilly, take care of your mother and little brother," Dad says when he reappears with his skyjacker uniform on. He hasn't worn it since I was much younger, when he still worked with Uncle Stinger before retiring to take care of us.

"Dad, what's going on? Mom?" I demand, wanting to know what's so serious that he has to jump up and leave in the middle of dinner.

He stops, folds me into his arms, flexing his wings before planting a kiss on my forehead. He does the same to little Simeon, then holds Mom for several moments before kissing her as well.

"Dad's gotta go help Uncle Stinger with some interplanetary stuff," he says, putting his hands on my shoulders and looking into my eyes. "I'll be back by tomorrow, Tilly, I promise."

"Caine," Mom says, breathless, drawing Dad's attention.

"Jupiter," he answers, and Mom just gives him this _look_ , and he nods, disappearing out into the night sky, the balcony door still swinging open in the breeze.

* * *

Simeon is long past falling asleep, but I've stayed up with Mom, cleaning up around the apartment while she contacts one of her friends on the _Aegis_ to let them know what's going on. Not that they probably don't know already, but she just feels the need to contact them, to be comforted by knowing that they'll keep a watch on anything suspicious that might crop up.

Finally, around eleven, she signs off on the communication with the _Aegis_ and comes into my room, sitting on the edge of my bed as I wrangle my hair into two loose braids.

"Mom," I say, but she just raises a hand, palm out, to quiet me.

"Sweetheart, there's not much I can tell you. There wasn't much they could even tell me." Smoothing her hair down to push behind her shoulders, she explains, "Not because they weren't permitted, but because there wasn't much to tell."

I tie off my second braid, then climb down to the end of the bed to sit next to Mom, who pulls me into a side hug. Resting my cheek on her shoulder, I ask, "What could they tell you?"

She doesn't answer, at first, but after a few minutes of sitting with our arms around each other, she confesses, "Someone who may or may not be related to the Abrasax family has sent a ship here, to Earth. I was notified of the foreign vessel having entered our starspace, but other than that, there wasn't anything else they could tell me. Your dad and Stinger left to take a few of the retired skyjackers stationed here on Earth to investigate."

"And if the ship is Abrasax," I realize, "Dad is going to be gone for more than a night, isn't he?"

Mom frowns, probably more at my quick conclusion than its actual accuracy, and admits, "No, then I might have to take a business trip for a few days."

The mood in the room turns somber, until she says, "How about we go watch one of those cheesy comedies Uncle Stinger recommended?"

Laughing lightly, I shake off the heavy thoughts of Balem and the other Abrasax, easily trading it for some hushed laughter – Mom will definitely kill me if we wake Simeon up this late at night.


	2. Chapter 2

When I wake up in the morning, I head straight into the kitchen and grab the eggs, coffee, and toast to cook up some breakfast for Mom. While I'm boiling the water for the coffee, Simeon wakes up, so I head into the nursery and scoop him up in one arm, wrapping him in a blanket with the other to keep him nice and cozy. Settling him into his high chair, I slice up some banana and put some puffed cereal on a plate for him to eat while I work.

"Crap!" I exclaim under my breath as the water boils over and spills. Shutting the burner off, I fumble around in the towel drawer, then grab the pot handle with a folded towel. Making sure it's far away from Simeon, I set it down on a hot plate on the counter to cool off.

Thankfully, I didn't get any of the scalding water on myself, so I move to the other side of the stove and crack two eggs into a buttered pan, looking over my shoulder at Simeon every few seconds to make sure he's not getting himself into trouble.

Once I've got two sunny-side eggs plated, I look over my shoulder to double-check on Simeon and nearly scream when I see Mom playing with him at the table.

"Mom!" I exclaim, nearly dropping the plate, "When did you get up?!"

"Just a few minutes ago," she says, walking over to the counter to survey my hard work. Her eyes land on the failed attempt at making coffee, and to my relief, she just smiles.

"I was waiting for it to cool to wipe it off the stove," I say, and she just nods, grabbing a handful of paper towels to mop up the probably-lukewarm evidence.

"You did a good job, darling," she says, taking the plate from my hands and setting it down on the table. Smoothing my hair down to kiss the top of my head, she breezes past me and skillfully fixes herself a cup of coffee before grabbing a fork.

I rinse out the pan and place the dirty dishes in the sink to be washed after breakfast, then make myself a bowl of cereal and join Mom and Simeon at the table. Mom's already eaten most of one egg, but Simeon's apparently gotten more food on his face than in his mouth, so I get up to grab a towel to wipe his face off.

"I'll do it, sweetheart," Mom says, so I hand her the towel so she can wipe his face off. "Did you sleep okay?"

"Yuff," I reply around a mouthful of cereal, which then strikes me as not very ladylike, just as I dodge the swat from Mom. "Yes," I clarify after swallowing, earning a satisfied nod.

Mom tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear, then looks over my shoulder at the stove clock. Frowning, she collects Simeon in her arms before grabbing the phone, only to put it down, eyebrows knotting in concern.

"He never came home last night," she says to herself, rocking Simeon in her arms to elicit a satisfied burp from his little tummy. She continues to gently sway back and forth, making me inhale the rest of my cereal.

It's not like Mom to just stand there, holding Simeon, and sway back and forth in a kind of trance; her danger senses must be on extremely high alert just because Dad isn't back yet. Dumping the plates and my bowl into the sink, I freeze when the phone rings, the chime low and normal this time.

"STINGER APINI," the caller ID chirps, but Mom's still frozen in her trance, so I grab it and click the TALK button.

"Uncle Stinger!" I exclaim, but to my disappointment, it's not him.

"Hi, Tilly," Kiza says, "sorry I'm not my dad. I do have a bit of good news, though, that he told me to pass along to you and your mum."

"Is it about the ship Dad went to investigate with Uncle Stinger?" I ask.

She confirms it, then says, "They were close when they thought that it might be an Abrasax ship."

"Close?" I ask. "It either is or it isn't."

She laughs, a laugh lightened by the genetic recode that cleared up her illness. "Not if it was sent as part of Balem's will to act as the welcoming party to a possible recurrence."

 _Then Mom and Dad were right_ , I think, walking over to where Mom stands, still swaying with a much calmer Simeon in her arms. Touching her shoulder to draw her attention, I put Kiza on speakerphone and say, "Kiza, can you recap what you just told me for Mom?"

"The ship my dad and Caine went to investigate is an Abrasax ship sent to welcome Balem's recurrence," she says, which finally breaks Mom from her weird trance. I take Kiza off speaker, thank her for the information, and ask if she'd like to speak to Mom about it more.

"Sure," she says, so I hand Mom the phone, take Simeon from her, and carry him into the nursery to get him out of his jammies and into some play clothes before we take him out in the stroller for a morning walk.

As I slip off his pajamas, I hear Mom shut the door to the bedroom, which worries me more than it probably should. She could just want some private time to think about the news, but then again, I never heard her hang up the phone.

That's one perk of being half-lycantant that does, occasionally, drive me crazy more than help.

"Guuwaaah," Simeon says as I pull his shirt on over his head, wiggling a little bit in protest.

"Guwah, yourself," I reply lightheartedly, leaning down to give him a raspberry on his tummy, sending him into a fit of giggles that makes me start laughing, too.

It takes me an extra minute or two to get his bottoms on because of the laughing; he has a bad habit of going all roly-poly whenever he laughs, nearly shoving his foot in his mouth in the process. When he does finally calm down, I slip on some cute little corduroys to go with his lime-and-hunter green shirt, then finish off his outfit with a pair of socks and teeny-tiny sneakers.

"Now, doesn't someone look handsome?" I say, after using a wet comb to smooth down his wild and wispy, black-as-night bedhead.

"Huaaaa!" he exclaims, raising tiny fists in the air as I scoop him up again to deposit in the playpen in the living room while I go to dress myself. Before I shut the door to my room, I tell him, "Now, Simeon, make sure you don't get yourself into trouble. Don't let Linesh steal your shoe again."

As if he actually understands what I'm saying, he looks over one shoulder at the little stuffed elephant toy the _Aegis_ pilot sent when Mom and Dad notified Captain Tsing of their second pregnancy.

Heading into my room, I grab a white long-sleeve shirt, a ruffle-strapped sundress, and some white tights to wear, then quickly comb through my now-wavy locks with my fingers. Pinning my hair back with a light blue headband to match my sky-colored dress, I swipe on some chapstick before heading back out into the living room to grab Simeon.

When I exit my bedroom, though, I notice that the door to my parents' room is now open. A peek inside reveals an empty room and an unmade bed, so I walk back out to the living room and find Mom already dressed and buckling Simeon into his stroller.

"Ready to go?" she asks, slipping a small over-the-shoulder purse on over her amethyst cardigan, thin white turtleneck, and plain black slacks.

"Yeah," I respond, grabbing the house keys from their hook by the fridge as Mom navigates the stroller out the front door and to the elevator.

* * *

We cross the street along with the other pedestrian traffic, then pause on the other side to watch the taxis and cars in a million different colors whizz past to mysterious destinations.

"Where do you think they're all going?" I ask Mom, and she takes a moment to think about it before responding.

That's one of my favorite things about Mom; not only does she actually think through things before responding, but she takes a lighthearted angle and goes with the most realistic answer possible. She tries not to sugar-coat things, but the occasional dusting of verbal confectioner's sugar does add a certain enchantment to her voice when she speaks.

"You can't ever be sure," she admits, probably thinking about the untold numbers of aliens who live on planet Earth and the secret places they often spirit themselves away to, "but considering it's a Tuesday, most of them are probably going to work somewhere."

"Thank God for Spring Break," I laugh, cringing at the thought of being in English right about now.

"Amen, kiddo," she agrees, and Simeon lets out his own little baby-laugh, too.

We cross a couple more streets before coming to the park, flipping a coin to choose which walking path we'll take today.

Setting the timer on her phone for fifteen minutes so we know when to turn back, Mom takes a second to breathe in the crisp spring air before confidently wrapping her hands around the stroller handle and setting off at a brisk pace. I follow her lead, easily matching pace and quickly getting lost in my own thoughts.

 _Okay, so the ship Dad went to check out_ is _Abrasax. But it's not as if it was sent in an act of war… no, it was sent to welcome Asher as Balem's recurrence. What are the odds that my best friend would be it…?_

That's an excellent question that I pose to Mom.

"It has to be, like, infinitesimally small odds that it would even happen," I insist, not even remotely sure of how to even _calculate_ those kinds of odds. "Like, _how_ does that even happen?"

Lips pursed in thought, she says, "Recurrences are basically genetic twins. I wonder if the exact same gene sequence is only able to crop up, and we're able to recognize it, because of the incredibly advanced life spans created through use of RegeneX."

I actually stop walking. "Wait," I breathe, as the cogs turn faster in my head, "you mean, the longer they live, the more likely it is that a recurrence will be born?"

"More or less," she answers. "There are literally billions upon billions of possible genetic combinations, but over the course of dozens of millennia, the probability of that specific combination happening more than once might increase."

"Like pulling marbles out of a bag," I think aloud. "Replace the first marble you draw from a bag of hundreds of thousands, and keep drawing until you get it again."

"And each marble is a generation, maybe twenty years or so," Mom adds. "I'm guessing that's one way to explain it."

Rolling my eyes from just _thinking_ about the math involved, I reach down into the bottom of the stroller to grab one of the water bottles we keep in reserve. Popping the seal, I unscrew the top and take a sip, then close it tightly and place it in the little cup holder attached to the stroller handle.

Sighing, I say, "Thank goodness you got that RegeneX importation restriction passed for Earth. We seriously do not need a bunch of recurrences running around to drive the interstellar bureaucracy even crazier than it is now – _ouch!"_

"Your mother and best friend are recurrences, Tilana," Mom says in her _you screwed up_ voice. Gently rubbing the back of her hand to dissipate the shock of one of the hardest swats I've gotten in my life, she adds quietly, "And please think before you speak."

I stand frozen for a minute before the heat of my embarrassment melts me. Mom's already continued down the path, so I jog lightly to catch up to her, then throw my arms around her middle and hug her tightly.

"I'm sorry," I say. "That was dumb and insensitive."

In response, she wraps her arm around me and squeezes me lightly. "Oh, dear," she sings, "whatev-er will I do with my dar-ling daughter?"

"Bwaghh!" Simeon shouts, as if on cue.

Mom cocks her head, then looks at me, and gets this devilish look on her face. I think I'd laugh if not for the chill that runs down my spine when her arm tightens around me and she asks, "Did you hear that?"

I'm hesitant, but I answer anyways. "Hear… what?"

"Simeon said," she replies, suddenly nuzzling my forehead, "throw her in the brig!"

And, as always, I fall victim to another one of Mom's tickle-attacks.

 _Should've seen it coming._

* * *

Surprisingly, when we get back from our walk, Asher is outside the apartment, sitting against the wall with his head between his knees.

"Asher?" I exclaim, "What are you doing here?"

His head shoots up, scaring me into wondering if he might've been possessed by something, but the wild look in his eyes is one of fear when he nearly shouts, "Tilly, holy crud, some guy with a _tail_ showed up at my house this morning asking for _me!"_

"Wait, what?" I flatly respond. I wasn't expecting that, but then again, neither was he.

Scrambling to stand, he grabs me by the shoulders and leans in close and secretively, then whispers, "Melody answered the door since Mom had already gone to work, which I specifically told her not to do, but thankfully she lied and said I wasn't home, because then the guy with the tail," he pauses to whisper directly into my ear, "the guy with the tail used some… thing… on her, and it made her forget about opening the door. Then he went away.

"Something told me I should come here. I figured, your family is weird, so maybe your mom or dad can help?" he adds, pulling away to look pleadingly at Mom.

I turn to look at Mom as well, and watch her struggle to hide the smile as she questions him about the man with the tail.

"Okay, so was it like a lizard tail or a monkey tail?"

Asher looks totally thrown off by the question, but answers anyways. "It looked like a cat tail, only it just had a tuft of fur on the end."

"Color?"

"Uh… kind of honey on the tail, but the fur on the end was brown."

Confused, I mouth, _Lion splice?_

"Did he have a lot of hair?" she continues, as if this kind of line of questioning is absolutely normal.

I'm flabbergasted when Asher pauses, crosses his arms, then brightens with realization.

"Actually," he says, "he did! It was kind of a mix of brown and honey, but he had a ponytail and a crazy beard. But not a curly beard," he clarifies, as if it's absolutely necessary."

Of course, she just keeps questioning him, asking, "Notice anything weird about him, other than the tail?"

Asher gets this disgusted look on his face before replying, "Yeah. His beard was in a ponytail, too. It was really gross."

Mom pauses, then laughs, and says, "Well, I don't know how, or why, but Balem had pretty decent taste in splices. Peter's a good one; nice and friendly, not too scary. But he didn't have a beard the last time I saw him. Huh."

"No," I cackle, barely able to keep my diaphragm from erupting into uncontrollable spasms, "the one – joke – not-"

"Yes," she chuckles in answer.

"Peter Panther!" we both groan good-naturedly, then lose ourselves to sobs of laughter as Asher just stands there like a statue.

I actually have to wipe a few tears from my eyes when I regain my breath. Granted, that was a horrible joke I made the first time I met the lion splice, way back when I was only seven years old, but unfortunately it stuck. Back then I might not have known there was actually a difference, but it just fit too well with his name to argue.

"Here," Mom coughs, stifling the last few echoes of laughter, "come on in, Asher. Let's talk."

"Okay…" he trails off as Mom unlocks the door and has me take the stroller inside ahead of her and Asher. Mom offers him a seat while I put Simeon in the playpen and put the stroller in the closet, then pours him a glass of juice, which he downs in seconds.

I wish I had telepathy, because then I would ask Mom how she's going to explain things to Asher. That would be better than getting another _I told you so_ from her for not wanting to learn Russian. Too bad Dad's not here to get chastised, too.

For all of her royalty and grace, she chooses to take the path of least tact this time, which I later realize is just about the only way to get through to my poor best friend.

"Asher," she starts slowly, "do you believe in aliens?"


End file.
